1. Field
Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a washing machine which removes contaminants from laundry and a method of controlling the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, an operation of removing contaminants attached to laundry is referred to as washing and an apparatus which performs a washing operation is referred to as a washing machine.
Since attraction acts between contaminants and laundry, it is difficult to remove the contaminants from the laundry. Accordingly, in order to separate contaminants from laundry, a washing machine may supply a wash liquid which includes water and a detergent to laundry. The detergent may help contaminants easily be removed from the laundry.
Also, a large amount of time is consumed to remove contaminants due to a low diffusion speed of contaminants. Accordingly, to increase the diffusion speed of contaminants, a washing machine may heat washing water. Since ions in the washing water and contaminants are activated when a temperature of the washing water is increased, kinetic energy of the contaminants increases, and the contaminants are thereby easily separated from the laundry.
For this, the washing machine may heat the washing water using various methods and may include an additional unit which heats the washing water. For example, the washing machine may use a dielectric heating method of applying a high frequency electric field to the wash liquid to use heat loss caused by friction generated due to vibrations of ions in the detergent and polarized water molecules included in the wash liquid. Here, since the wash liquid including the detergent has a higher dielectric constant and a high loss tangent, an electric wave energy absorption rate is high and heating performance is excellent.